Events & News

Nancy will read “Waiting for Tables”, a lyric essay about the Armenian and Turkish communities in Sunnyside and Woodside, Queens. After moving to Woodside in 2007 and discovering Turkish and Armenian restaurants and groceries, not to mention corresponding communities, Agabian set out to discover the relationship between two nationalities historically at odds with each other, mashed together in a tiny neighborhood in New York City. This is a first-person account about life and death, the reality of immigration, and neighborhood diplomacy.
“Waiting for Tables” is made possible in part with funds from the Decentralization Program, a re-grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts.

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May 5
7:00 pm
Lambda Literary Award Finalists reading
LGBT Community Services Center
208 W. 13th Street, between 7th and 8th Aves
New York, NY 10011
Subway: 1,2,3,9 to 14th Street; A,C,E to 14th Street
Free reception at 6:00 pm, before the reading
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/awards/index2.html

I’ll read from “Me as her again”, a finalist for a Lammy award in LGBT Nonfiction. Featuring other finalists, including: Daniel Allen Cox, Bill Konigsberg, Bob Morris, Shawn Stewart, Ruff, Vanda, Meri Weiss, Martin Wilson, Chavisa Woods, Magdalena Zurawski, and others. Hosted by Kathleen Warnock, playwright and curator of the legendary “Drunken Careening Writers” series at KGB bar.

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May 16
Deadline (extended) to apply for “Our Side”. Flier here: our-side-writing-workshop
a creative nonfiction workshop on cultural identity
June 6 — August 15, 10 Saturdays, 10 am — 12:30 pm
Sliding scale ($10 – $200 for the series, that’s $1 – $20 per session) FREE for the unemployed
Topaz Arts
55-03 39th Avenue
Woodside, NY 11377
Subways: 7 to 61st Street, or R to Northern Blvd.
http://www.topazarts.org

Our Side is a new workshop for writers of all levels to write in English about the worlds they live in, past and present. For the first five weeks, we will read work by Amy Tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, and others; then we’ll discuss the issues these writers address on emigration, dislocation from homeland, assimilation to a new land, mainten-ance of cultural identity, and trans-nationalism. These discussions will prompt writing exercises to explore our own experiences with migration and views of cultural identity. For the following four weeks, we’ll read to the group our writing to receive feedback and help polish it into memoirs or personal essays. During the last meeting, we’ll prepare for a reading of our work on August 16.

Our Side is made possible, in part, by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

For info on how to apply and other details, please see flyer: our-side-writing-workshop